While not on the scale of Trump’s business “operating loss”, Hillary Clinton – like many ‘wealthy’ individuals is taking advantage of a legal scheme to use historical losses to avoid paying current taxes.

But it’s not there just for “the wealthy,” as we imagine them. Every day people in the middle class attempt to start a new business. They take on a lot of financial risk to do so. Many end up losing money. If starting a business wasn’t risky, everyone would do it.

It is just and fair that they don’t have to pay taxes on money they have lost. Donald Trump was playing by the same rules as everyone else—in this case, including Clinton and her propaganda rag.

It shouldn’t even be called a tax break. It would be wrong to tax people on income they lost in a business failure. It would also discourage the creation of new business and ventures. Indeed, without that “loophole” the gap between the “one percent” and everyone else would widen because only the very wealthy could afford the risk of startup business ventures.

Joe Scudder is the "nom de plume" (or "nom de guerre") of a fifty-ish-year-old writer and stroke survivor. He lives in St Louis with his wife and still-at-home children. He has been a freelance writer and occasional political activist since the early nineties. He describes his politics as Tolkienesque.